Alcohol was classified as one of the most carcinogenic substances by the World Health Organisation in 1988 and is particularly linked to cancers of the mouth, throat and liver.

Prof Mark Bellis, director of the centre for Public Health at Liverpool John Moores University, has calculated how many people die from alcohol-related illnesses in the UK.

He said his latest data shows that cancer was the biggest contributor to alcohol-related deaths and was responsible for 9,000 cancer deaths a year, 1,500 of them from breast cancer.

He called for cancer warnings to be mandatory on all alcohol products saying it was wrong that people were buying them without knowing the risks.

"There is no safe level of alcohol consumption in terms of cancer risk. Everyone should know if a substance carries that sort of risk. Posters shouldn't say 'drink responsibly' they should say something about the health risks, particularly around cancer," he told the Daily Telegraph.

Prof Bellis said the message about the dangers of alcohol had become mixed with most people believing that drinking at low levels was good for the heart.

However, he said: "The protective effects are limited to older age groups and anything more than half a glass of wine a night is not beneficial. If someone has a heavy night, drinking a bottle of wine in a night, just once a month, all the health benefits are wiped out.

"The way most people drink is giving them no health benefit at all.

"We need to tackle the harmful effects of alcohol in the same way as tobacco. It is a fundamental right that people should not that alcohol causes cancer."

Lead author of the latest research, Dr Timothy Naimi, from the Department of Medicine at BUSM found that alcohol resulted in approximately 20,000 cancer deaths annually in America, accounting for about 3.5 per cent of all cancer deaths in the U.S.

Similar results have been found in Britain with one study in 2011 showing that four per cent of all cancer cases were attributable to alcohol, around 12,500 a year.

They also found breast cancer was the most common cause of alcohol-attributable cancer deaths in women, accounting for approximately 6,000 deaths annually, or about 15 per cent of all breast cancer deaths.

Cancers of the mouth, throat and oesophagus were common causes of alcohol-attributable cancer mortality in men, resulting in a total of about 6,000 annual deaths.

The researchers also found that each alcohol-related cancer death accounted for an average of 18 years of potential life lost.

In addition, although higher levels of alcohol consumption led to a higher cancer risk, average consumption of 1.5 drinks per day or less accounted for 30 per cent of all alcohol-attributable cancer deaths.

Dr Naimi said: "The relationship between alcohol and cancer is strong, but is not widely appreciated by the public and remains underemphasised even by physicians.

"Alcohol is a big preventable cancer risk factor that has been hiding in plain sight."